


Paper Cranes

by lara_aine



Category: Pundit RPF (US)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-26
Updated: 2009-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-19 05:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lara_aine/pseuds/lara_aine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they kiss is on a street corner in DC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Cranes

The first time they kiss is on a street corner in DC. There had been drinks in a bar and then a shared bottle of bourbon drunk from a paper-bag as they embarked ‘Bike Messenger Maddow’s Walking Tour of DC.’

The first time they kiss it’s utterly cheesy; a clipped curb, Keith’s hand on her elbow as she stumbles, they bump noses and glasses and when their lips manage to meet so too do their teeth.

Rachel snorts, a soft exhale of warm air against his cheek. Because the whole situation is utterly ludicrous and although he’s had his tongue in her mouth, Keith doesn’t seem able to touch her anywhere but her elbow.

He pulls away, eyebrows raised, mouth twisted in amusement, “Well, that was attractive.”

She laughs harder then, folding in two, and into him. He’s soft where she lands, tentative hands, his feet on her toes. He swallows her up.

The first time they kiss is on a street corner, late at night, under a security camera they don’t see. The first time they kiss, there’s a video on WorldNetDaily within three hours.

 

It’s not that the backlash is unexpected. Keith hovers around her like she might blow at any minute and when he thinks she’s not looking, posts vitriolic rebukes of Fox News and CNN on his Kos blog. Their ratings spike, and for about a week their handoffs are a big ball of awkward, self-aware embarrassment. Fox replays the clip ad nauseum, inter-spliced with as many teabagging jokes as it can find. On CNN, it’s just about the only time Dan Savage and Tony Perkins have agreed on anything.

She keeps her head down. She is thirty-six years old and, depending on who you ask, a fraud, a disappointment, a hypocrite.

Words fall from her mouth but the meaning alters, as if the language she speaks is suddenly different. It still matters apparently; who you kiss badly on dark street corners.

She can’t change that, no more than she can change herself, or him, folding away the edges of her life like an origami bird.

They’ll learn to kiss better.


End file.
